THE weekend’s showbiz spectacular was indeed a watershed moment for English football. Because its divorce from the Premier League was finally complete. And there is no going back.

‘This is a new dawn for English football’ was the connoisseurs’ general verdict after the Jose v Pep premiere. And therein lies the constant mistake. The Premier League is not English football, it is football that is played in England.

“Wow, football,” they crowed cringingly over the airwaves on Five Live at half-time in the Manchester derby.

Best league in the world? Maybe. But England and English football can claim no credit for that. It is the best show in the world, definitely, a star-studded cocktail of big names: Jose v Pep, Zlatan versus his own ego, how many different shapes can Antonio Conte throw on the touchline before being certified.

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It’s the Creme de la Prem of glitz and glamour. But it has nothing to do with England aside from being played on these shores – you might as well play it on Jupiter.

In fact, the Premier League is akin to a twisted version of the Body Snatchers, borrowing our English club names such as Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal and sucking the true life out of it before parading it as an English club playing English football. And we take it all in, fawning over how great English football really is. Nonsense.

The BBC, yes them again, tweeted: “It’s good to be back right? The international break is over.” And that, right there, is proof of the Premier League body snatcher effect.

Those tedious internationals. Horrible things. Pesky flies. Swat them and pour our Premier League fix back down our throats please. England? Who cares? Nobody. Nobody wants to see it, or hear it. It is a dirty word.

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The Premier League is littered with foreign players that impact on the England team

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England and Premier League regulars such as Wayne Rooney are becoming a rare breed

Of all the people, it was England’s Australian rugby union coach Eddie Jones who hit the nail on the head when he said that playing for your country is not the pinnacle of the sport.

“The fundamental problem for England soccer for me is that you have a team that doesn’t have a high enough priority in the England soccer hierarchy, where the most prestigious thing is to play in the English Premier League,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

“There is something fundamentally wrong there and I’d hate to see a situation in rugby where World Cups and Test matches aren’t the pinnacle of the sport.”

Glad the international break is over, we say, proving Jones’s point.

DX

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England beat Slovakia 1-0 in their first World Cup 2018 qualifier

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England lost to Iceland to crash out of Euro 2016

When we think of La Liga, an image is conjured of tiki-taka Spanish football. When we say Serie A, we associate it with the mean defence of Italian football.

But say the Premier League and English football is not what you think about. You think of the big show, a blockbuster premiere, big names, big cash and a marketing department’s dream.

The inconvenient truth is that the Premier League and English football are two completely separate entities. Hell, I do not even know what English football is any more, do you?

So when Sam Allardyce reconvenes with England as they take on Malta on October 8 – and how we long for him to just be himself instead of adopting that dazed grin like a starry-eyed teenager asking for autographs – for heavens sake let’s not fool ourselves by bleating how England’s Premier League ‘elite’ have struggled to break down 11 men and failed to score until the 56th minute.

England player ratings against Iceland

Mon, June 27, 2016

Express Sport brings you England's player ratings as they crashed out of Euro 2016 following a 2-1 defeat to Iceland

Express Sport brings you England's player ratings from their 2-1 defeat to Iceland as the Three Lions crash out of Euro 2016

Because the body snatchers have overcome our English players too; they are afflicted by the same tunnel vision now as the fans and pundits; a one-track mind about the sexy Premier League. They too just want that ‘international break to be over’. They too just want their fix.

The horse has bolted on English football and there is no going back. And as we drift blissfully into the Champions League this week it is with equal ignorance that we support our English clubs in Europe. And so the silly facade continues.

English football’s identity, thanks to this past weekend’s showbiz spectacular, has been erased entirely and it will never return.

Still who cares right? Who cares when we’ve got the Premier League. No one.